Reflections on an Iceman

The 20th running of the Iceman Commeth Challenge is behind us. Here are my observations:
Long ago, I made a promise to Skip Obermeyer that I would follow his Rule of Music: play a wide enough variety of music to annoy every member of the audience.
Check that one off the to-do list.
I played the Libera Me movement from Verdi's Requiem. And no one complained. Only one person commented on it: "I sang this in college!"
My point is, pretty much anything goes at a mountain bike race. If they let me play Verdi, they're an OK bunch.
I had a lot of fun at this year's Iceman. It's a great way to end the season (even though 'cross continues to bound along for another few weeks).
This year's event was energized by the addition of 2000 more riders. Promoter Steve Brown lifted the restriction of 2500 entries, and the people came in droves to Traverse City. Now let's just understand why the event exists in the first place: to bring people to Traverse City at a time of year when things are pretty slow in that resort town. This year's inclusion of 2000 more maniacs created an instant family-friendly air of Woodstock. Every other car in town has a rack full of bikes. Every restaurant is full. Hotels and bars are jammed.
Yes, there were glitches, and there were some traffic jams on the course, but the overall feedback was that everything worked. The city of Kalkaska was thrilled. Riders were also happy. And that bodes well for the event that's entering it's third decade on the calendar.
For those of you who don't know what it is, it's a 29-mile long point-to-point mountain bike race through Michigan's northern woods. It rolls over old logging trails, snowmobile trails, and single track and dumps itself into an RV park on the edge of T.C. Michiganders look for any reason to go to Traverse, and this is a good reason.
I was assigned to the finish line in the Timber Ridge RV park. In the morning, it's a pretty quiet place. There are about 300 riders ready to tackle the shorter circuit course at 9am while the longer races leave Kalkaska in waves. Having never really seen a mtb race, I can only guess that this is what most of them look like. Most promoters would call 300 riders "a successful event". Just wait a few hours.
When the short races wrap up, the longer races start rolling in. Then it's a parade of enormous proportion for the next 5 hours as wave after wave of age group and ability come to the finish. Some of them on foot.
Each year, we get a handful of finishers who were forced to run the final miles of the course carrying bikes with horribly disfigured derailleurs and broken chains. Many of the riders have dirt on them. Some have blood. Most have smiles.
One of the best parts of being the announcer for this event is seeing everyone that I've seen all summer one last time before winter chases us indoors, meeting new people from all over, and reconnecting with riders who I haven't seen in ages. For example, Mike Lantz from Indiana and Chip Ellison from Cincinnati. Seriously, it had been YEARS.
The crew that puts this event on deserves 4500 heartfelt thanks. And Steve "Iceman" Brown is one of Michigan Cycling's champions for keeping this thing on a positive upward climb.
The family vibe is alive and well. The party vibe is stoked by a busy beer tent. The brotherhood/sisterhood of cycling is strengthened. Events like this one are what make this sport awesome. On your left is a photo of the East Bay taken from the Grant Traverse Resort. For those of you who aren't aware, Traverse City is one of the things they don't want you to know about Michigan because we have enough damn tourists here already, thank you very much. Wait a minute, WE'RE the damn tourists! Hmmm.
At the end of the event, everyone goes out into T.C. and celebrates the end of training season. And they all make pledges to work harder next year to do better.
We'll see.

Iceman Report coming soon. In the meantime...

I'll get around to writing down my many observations about the monster mountain bike event called Iceman. I promise.
In the meantime, the delay can be blamed on Book #2.
I'll only say that writing Book #2 is totally different from writing Book #1.
Book #1 was written without ANY research, ANY notes, ANY outline, ANY planning, or ANY forethought. It was almost entirely off the top of my head. If you have dreams of writing a book, don't do it this way. It's not the most efficient way to go about it. (But since I wasn't worried about efficiency, it worked for Book #1.)
Book #2 is underway. Like Roadie, it's not directed at cyclists. You'll understand when you see it. I can't go into it.
For now, all you need to know is that I've spent the past few months laying all the groundwork so that no all I have to do is fill in the gaps with the story. I don't have a working title. I don't have a character's name. But all that can come later.

And that's why the Iceman report is late.

Lights

I'm normally one who embraces change. But every now and then I'll see small things that have changed, and I'll turn into my "cranky old man" persona and rail against the change.
And let me preface this by telling you how SMALL these things are in the Big Picture.
1. Fig Newtons: they changed their packaging so that it's re-sealable. Why? They went 100 years (I round UP) with the same sleeves of cookies. Why the change now?
The new packaging is slicker. It holds in freshness. But it also makes it harder to get the cookie out. Crumbs everywhere.
And I suspect that there are fewer cookies in the new packaging. I didn't COUNT them, but something tells me that they did it to skimp a little. No problem. I expect that sort of stuff.
You know how the sleeve of cookies had them all in a row? Except for sometimes you'd get one cookie that somehow got turned 90 degrees in the sleeve so that it wasn't like the others? I loved it when that happened. It indicated that one cookie had personality. In a machine that produces consistent results, having one cookie act differently than the others indicates that it had the desire to be different. That's pretty cool. And on further review, frightening. I guess I don't really want my food to think.
Anyway, they changed the packaging.
2. Michigan State Police flashing lights. Forever, the MSP light was a single revolving light on top of the blue car. Today, that light is an LED beacon that flashes.
Small, I know. Big deal.
But there's something very Wal-Mart about it. Like it came from the Christmas display. Chintzy. Fake.
The old red light would shine out across the land and travel in a circle coming back to your eye at regular intervals. It was authoritative. It meant business. It was great when it was behind someone else, not you.
I'm sure we're just lucky to have one MSP car patrolling the roads of Michigan nowadays after all the budget cuts.
3. Televised football with a zillion graphics on the screen.
Do we need the yellow line to tell us approximately where the first down marker is? Really? I mean, it's not exact, so what's the point? I can add 10 to any other number in my head and get an approximation.
Is the score necessary if it hasn't changed in the past few minutes? (I know why they do this. It's so that the guy with the dish can surf across the channel and not invest 30 seconds in the game to find out the score.)
4. I can't think of anything else right now, but I'm sure there's more.
I'll get over it. Kvetching about the small stuff allows me to ignore the big stuff.
Have one of your own? Feel free to leave it in the comments box.

The Other Side

For the first time in more than 18 years, I've been.... um.... how do I say this?... It's um ... I suppose I should just come out with it... um... Geez, this is harder than I thought it would be... I've been... um... OK, here it goes.... in 3...2........1.... I've been riding around on a mountain bike.
And the gods haven't smiled. The chain broke twice in one week. The first time it broke, I was just a mile from Kinetic Systems Bike Shop where, if you ask real nicely, they offer roadside assistance - as long as it's within a mile of the store. I mean, let's be realistic.
The second time it broke, I was in the middle of Bald Mountain Rec which isn't the most difficult trail system in Michigan, but it's remote enough to require a good long walk to civilization.
Yesterday, after putzing around on dirt roads and rail trails AND after replacing the chain, I hit the single track again. It was... how do I put this....?
It was O.K.
I can totally see the allure. It's a rush. To quickly process the information of the trail as it comes flying at you is a trip. I can feel what it did to my body; I appreciate the workout. There's a challenge around every corner - especially if you don't know the trail as was my case. The turns were so tight I swear I saw my own rear end on several occasions.
But...
You knew I had a big but, right? Well here it is:
After riding frantically for 30 minutes, I had only covered a few hundred yards on the map and my top speed was 12mph.
The thing I like about road riding so much is the speed and the distance. I like having to unfold a map to show where I went. I love the speed.
I haven't caught "the bug" yet. It was a fun diversion. I'll incorporate the MTB into my winter workout. I may even ride it to work more often. (Seriously, this is my commute---->)

I'll hit more single track this fall and do my part to bridge the gap between Roadies and whatever they're called.
So to make a long story short, I've entered the realm of mountain biking. Let's hope this gives me something to talk about at Iceman next month.
And stay tuned. I found a good deal on Time Trial bikes.

TBR

In some sports, there is a phrase that covers a lot of unexplainable situations. For us, it's this one: "That's bike racing!"
We use it to reason away anything that we have no control over.
A crash happens right in front of you and ruins your chance of winning? That's bike racing!
You do the lion's share of the work in the breakaway only to get beat by a wheelsucker in the sprint? That's bike racing.
You get a flat tire at the point in your training ride where you were about to turn around and have a big tailwind home? That's bike racing. Technically, it's not, but it might as well be.
You finish one place out of the money? TBR.
You drive 6 hours to get to a race, spend $120 in food, gas, hotel, and you win $12 for 4th place? TBR.
Where am I going with this?
To the American League.
The day after the one-game-playoff game between the Twins and Tigers that went 12 innings, everyone in town (Detroit) was lamenting all the missed opportunities and the missed calls by the umpires. They were complaining about the Tigers' inability to get a runner home from 3rd base with one out. They were railing on the right fielder who muffed two plays.
Listening to the sports radio shows on my drive to and from work, I heard one complaint after another about all the that the Tigers did wrong. Each one was missing the point: it's a game. People are human. People act differently under pressure. Things happen.
They were completely missing the fact that it was an amazing game. This single game had every ounce of excitement that you could pack into the sport. Sure, things went wrong. People missed catches and failed to get hits at the right time.
But you never hear baseball fans say, "Well, that's baseball." It's not in their lexicon.
To them, it's always someone's fault. Trade them. Fire the manager. Put them on the bench. Do something to them for not winning.
If cycling has taught me anything, it's to understand that no matter how hard you work at something, you'll never fully control it. Find the beauty in what's happening around you because really, that might be all you get.

Rio vs. Chicago. Seriously?

It's been just 12 hours since the announcement that the 2016 Olympics are going to be held in South America, and I'm already sick of hearing all the political malarky about it.
And since this topic deals with politics, I will state up front that I consider myself a staunch Independent.
Yes, I believe that Obama should have flown on Air Force Freakin' One to Copenhagen to make a plea on behalf of Chicago. To not go when the other three leaders were going would have been a major snub that would have echoed for years. Had he been successful against the odds, we would have eaten like kings. The economic impact of a the Summer Games is incalculably worth it and efforts to attract it can't be phoned it. That's how the game is played. It's the cost of doing business.
I've heard people spouting crap about the economy being bad and that he wasted money that should have been spent on fixing health care. We're America. We can still afford to fly a plane to Denmark. Get over it. If you want him to fly commercial and sit in Coach, write your congressman.
And now critics are saying that he failed as a president because Chicago didn't get the bid. They don't understand how the Olympics work. Chicago never had a prayer. They were outgunned by Madrid and Tokyo who also didn't have a chance; the Olympics were loooong overdue a visit to South America.
The Games have been in North America, on the other hand, in every decade since 1960.
1960 - Squaw Valley
1968 - Mexico City
1976 - Montreal
1980 - Lake Placid
1984 - L.A.
1988 - Calgary
1996 - Atlanta
2002 - SLC.
And will be in Vancouver in 2010.
Chicago probably had a fabulous proposal. Chicago is a GREAT city. It would have been amazing to have them on the Great Lakes. But you had to know that the IOC was anxious to take their party to Brazil, and Brazil was ready. Heck, as soon as I heard that Rio was one of the finalists, I knew where it was going. It was obvious.
So let's stop blaming the Democrats or Republicans or whoever we can blame for all the mistakes that caused America to fail. And let's stop second-guessing the President's Euro-trip. Even though it was a foregone conclusion, he had to go.
Now, if you want to know how crazy I really am, hear this: Who do I believe needs to start bidding on the Olympic Games? Detroit. Laugh out loud. Go ahead. It sounds crazy if you place it in the context of Detroit 2009, but if you look 11 years into the future, you have to believe that this city will be in a better position. Face it, it can't possibly be any worse than Atlanta was when they were first awarded the bid for the '96 Games. Atlanta was a pit.
OK, maybe 2024.

Roadie out in front.

No, I didn't take this photo. I was never this close to the front of the peloton.
This was taken by one of the pro moto photo bikes in the caravan. They're a bunch of cool guys who have one of the funner jobs in the race. Jon Devich shoots for various publications and cyclingnews.com. (I don't think he's aware of how close we came to taking him out during Stage 6 when we crested a blind hill and found him and his driver stopped in the middle of the hill. The "photo bikes" will stop abruptly in the oddest places as they are dictated by the scenery. Other caravan vehicles must adjust their driving accordingly. We adjusted. Disaster averted.)
So a big thanks to them for capturing this prize for me.
Caption: Pro peloton tries to read over Jon's shoulder with little success.